Monthly Archives: May 2021

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is from Giuliano Ligabue…

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is from Yvan Jacques — and by the way, the name of the gent who wrote the parts of the song that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera didn't was Hoyt Curtin, not Hoyt Curtain…

Same as yesterday. Still working on a script that an editor inexplicably thinks is more important than posting to my blog. Doesn't this person understand that if you have a blog, nothing is more important than posting to it? Just because something pays doesn't put it ahead of writing about comic books and tomato soup and Frank Ferrante. Let's have some priorities, please.

A song from Wicked performed by the original cast…

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is from The Melbourne Ska Orchestra…

• Derek Chauvin wants a new trial. Donald Trump wants a new election. I want a new Stephen Sondheim musical.

Lest a certain editor phone to ask, "Why the hell are you posting on your blog instead of finishing that job you're working on for me?", I hereby declare this (and possibly tomorrow) days of light blogging on this site. There will be video links because I have a whole batch of them prepped and ready to go. There may even be a few others. I pray there will be no obits. And I pray I finish my current assignment soon. In the immortal words of Garry Moore, "Be very kind to each other out there."

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick starred in a Broadway revival of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple for 249 performances from 10/27/05 until 6/4/06.

Brad Garrett played Murray the Policeman and I've seen folks wonder why someone with Mr. Garrett's stardom would accept a supporting role like that. The obvious answer is that the show's producers must have made it worth his while. They needed a heavyweight to cover the part of Oscar if/when Nathan Lane was out, as he occasionally was…and Garrett did play the role for three whole months when Lane was off vacationing or shooting a movie or something.

Our link is to a video press kit for reviewers — excerpts from the show that could be used in TV reviews. I didn't get back to New York while it was running but a friend of mine saw it twice — once early on, once late in the run. He thought Lane and Broderick got better and better in the show…so keep in mind that these clips must have been shot at a preview so they could be distributed by opening night.

They're still pretty darned good. They probably videotaped the entire show when they recorded these moments. It would be nice to think it might someday be released in its entirety. There's a bootleg making the rounds but it looks and sounds like a bootleg.

If you don't have time to watch all of this reel, this link will take you directly to the bit about the spaghetti, followed by the bit about the little notes on Oscar's pillow. Neil Simon thought those were the two biggest laughs he ever got in any play. But here — watch the whole thing, starting with some lingering shots of the marquee…

• Sorry to hear that Bill and Melinda Gates are divorcing. Under community property laws, she'll get half of all the money in the world and he can keep the rest.

One of the many, many, many reasons I loved working for Sid & Marty Krofft was Billie Hayes. Billie was a veteran stage and screen performer best known for playing Witchiepoo on H.R. Pufnstuf and Mammy Yokum in the musical of Li'l Abner.

She was the first choice for the role of Mammy when the show first opened on Broadway but she was under the contract to another show at the time. So Charlotte Rae got the role of Dogpatch's reigning matriarch and when Charlotte left the show, Billie was available to step into the role. She was so good in it, she did the movie, too.

And she did other shows and other roles for the Kroffts. She returned as Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo for The Bay City Rollers Show that I wrote about here and here recently and I even posted a couple of photos of Billie in character with the Rollers. In everything she did, she was a ball of energy — the kind of performer who livened up every scene, the kind you couldn't take your eyes off of. I loved working with her. I loved just sitting with her, hearing stories of her long, colorful career.

She was also a fervent activist for animal rights (Donations in her name will be welcomed). She died last Thursday at the age of 96 but the last time I saw her, which was just a few years ago, she still had enough energy to light the entire studio and all the TV sets watching her.

You can read about that long, colorful career in this obit but there's one error I've asked them to correct: Lennie Weinrib was the voice of H.R. Pufnstuf but he was never ever the person inside the costume.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is from The Global Uke Companions and it was recommended to me by Scott Edelman…

As I've mentioned here from time to time, I have a secret e-mail address that I use when I have to sign up for a website that I suspect is likely to deluge me with ads 'n' spam 'n' e-mail I don't want. I've used it for some time and it gets a steady stream of communications of all kind, most of them enormously dishonest and full of Bandini.

Some of it is sexual. Some of it is political. The sexual e-mail covers the total span of everything that one or more consenting adults can do to other adults, consenting or not. So does the political e-mail, which seems to me about as accurate as the sexual messages that promise they can enlarge any part of your body to the size where you could cover it with flowers and enter it into the Rose Parade.

Some of the political messaging is Ultra-Liberal and some is Ultra-Conservative but all of it is Ultra-Something because it's all intended to get the recipient so mad and/or terrified that they'll send money, preferably lots of it in recurring donations. All of it says that The Enemy (whoever it is) is only days away from destroying America and everything we love about it.

The Anti-Liberal mail demonizes everyone on the Left but especially Biden (of course), Obama, both their wives, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Hillary Clinton. There's a surprising amount of hate directed at Hillary given that she holds no public office, hasn't for some time and isn't loudly attached to any possible legislation. I guess her name is real good for fund-raising.

The Anti-Conservative mail raises its money by warning about Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump and even at times, Donald Trump. It used to speak ill of William Barr but ever since he said the election was fair and some other things Trump didn't like, he's become a wizened authority to be followed.

Apart from the latter never going after women, I don't see a whole lot of difference between the two groups except that all of this kind of mail seems to presume two things. One is that the recipient is pretty friggin' stupid. The other is that to them, a piece of e-mail from God-Knows-Who that tells them what they want to believe is an unimpeachable source whereas any so-called "credible" news agency is part of a well-financed conspiracy to lie.

That e-mail address of mine has been getting these messages for decades. One party that writes many times a week has been telling me for more than three decades that it is in possession of incontrovertible evidence that will have Hillary Clinton on Death Row within the week if only I'll donate $10.00 or more. I thought all of that was nonsense that could be ignored. I never imagined it was a preview of Mainstream American Politics of the last few years.

Tech problems prevented me from getting this up here before Midnight. It's from last night's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and it's about the vaccine, people who refuse to take it and why they're wrong. I have no idea how many people this will convince but convincing any is better than convincing none…

You may be shocked to see it but I have another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is obviously by NelsonTYC performing on the Otamatone and it was suggested to me by Jim Newman…

Since the previous post went up, three separate readers of this site have written to ask, "Why wasn't Don Rickles in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?" In later years, Stanley Kramer would tell of how when he went to see Rickles perform, the comedian would always insult him several different ways (of course) but would especially ask, "You put every person in show business in that movie except me! Why?"

I don't know that Mr. Kramer ever gave him a direct answer but it's pretty obvious why. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was filmed between April 16, 1962 and December 6, 1962. Before the sixties were out, Mr. Rickles would be a pretty famous comedy star but in 1962, there were probably 300 comedians in the business who were better known than he was.